Backstage [discontinued version]

Chapter 3

Always one to keep his promises, a few days later, Monty and I set into the streets to find places for me to book gigs at. Most of the ideal restaurants and bars rejected me thanks to past experience. During my rather short time in Toronto, I had to diverge further and further away from my neighbourhood to look for new places. Thankfully I hadn't used my Shield ability on them yet, though that was a double-edged sword. My hand quivered as I signed the short-term contracts under their oblivious gazes. Beyond the guilt, I was terrified that I'd mess up something again. I played it cool though, smiling and nodding where it seemed appropriate.

They liked indie pop/folk music, they said. They thought I had talent. I knew those things better than anyone, but still, I latched onto their words. I had to play to their expectations to make this work. Even if I ended up failing in the end. When Monty asked about what kind of venues had reached out to me before, I closed that line of discussion. We were focusing on one thing, and that was the present, not the past.

Back at our apartment, he insisted on looking up more places online. My brain was fried from calculating my financial needs, but Monty was on a roll. "Better to be proactive," he said between the furious clacking on his keyboard.

I had enough of researching and thinking of all the ways it could go wrong. Instead, I went to the kitchen. By the time Monty had given up, the smell of fried rice filled up the apartment. Simple to make, and delicious every time.

I scooped a bowl for Monty and placed it in front of his face, so that way he wouldn't 'forget'. "Here."

Monty closed his laptop. "I'll pack it up for later. Thank you. Again. You don't need to cook for me."

"I don't need to, but it makes me happy." I mulled over his phrasing of words. "Do you not want me to?"

"It's just that—nevermind. It's nothing to do with you. Thanks. Since we're done, want to play Game X?"

I jumped up at the prospect. "Yeah! But you need to come up with an actual title for your own game."

He'd been working on this personal project ever since I first met him at a Tim Hortons shop. His coding knowledge allowed him to make a pixelated visual novel. It combined lots of mini games with scenarios where the player's choices would decide the story's outcome. The plot was simple: an unnamed protagonist was on the run, hopping from city to city, and meeting good and bad people along the way. Monty admitted that the story wasn't super original. What he really cared about was the programming side, though. It'd be good to put on a resume, and it occupied his time.

"I still think this would work better as a first-person RPG," I signed after playing the latest part. My mouse hovered over the landing screen, absorbing the new information I'd learned. "And for the title, maybe Chain Reaction? Since you have that motif in your mini-games, and what happens is..."

"Okay, Chain Reaction it is. General feedback?" Monty had his notepad out, ready to record my answers like a journalist.

I hummed the 8-bit music of the landing screen, letting it calm me down. Monty didn't realize how much of an emotional impact the game had on me every time something bad happened to the secondary characters. It was why I could never watch any Disney movie without bawling. I got attached to the characters, because games were written in a neat plotline, where everything had cause and consequence, and it made sense. But damn, this most recent part? Absolutely brutal.

"Adding those couple music tracks really helped. The 8-bit theme fit. That could just be me, since I live for game soundtracks. You changed the pixel art and that fits the serious tone, since you can see the people's facial expressions better. On a programming level, you might want to have different levels of difficulty for the mini games. But what's going to happen next? Did she actually get arrested? Does the MC know? What if he was in kahoots with the criminal, but--?"